A POS terminal is used in the retail trade field, i.e. at convenience stores or supermarkets, for sales management. On the POS terminal, the price is added up by reading the bar code printed on a package or on a price tag attached to the merchandise at the point of sales by means of a scanner or by operating a keyboard.
At a relatively large retail chain store, the POS terminals are connected to the store's server (hereinafter, store server), which carries out amount management, sales management, stock inquiry or appropriation, through the store's communications circuit such as LAN (Local Area Network) such that data is registered or stored in a database of the server. Further, the store server is connected to another server (e.g. headquarters' server) by way of a private circuit or a public circuit such as ISDN so that sales management data can be periodically collected.
As to the above POS terminal, an all-in-type of a register type is the mainstream. And, as to the communications circuit, the modem communication using the general subscribed telephone circuit or the ISDN circuit is conventionally the mainstream. And, the frame relay circuit is used in an environment thinking much of security and/or having a margin of funds. In any case, because communications using the above is usually carried out once in the night or several times a day, the communication cost is low. And, because the connection with the host server is carried out basically one-on-one by dialing-up, a communications means with high security is provided.
As above, because the Client Server System, wherein a plurality of store servers communicate with the host server, has become the mainstream, equipment capable of communicating independently of register operation or system capacity is increasing. Since all the master are held in the store server (the client), if power source is secured, the POS system can solely work regardless of the communications circuit condition. Especially, a master is necessary at a situation that a lot of items exist and therefore the merchandise shall be managed item by item, wherein dependence on the store server increases.
FIG. 15 is a block diagram showing an outline of the configuration of a POS system using the above conventional client server system. In the figure, 51 denotes the client computer installed at each store, and 52 is the server computer installed in the headquarters. The server computer self-contains a database (DB) 521. Both the servers are connected in a closed network, i.e. a private circuit or public network 57, through a LAN (Local Area Network) or WAN (Wide Area Network) circuit 53,54 and further a router or terminal adapter 55,56.
The client computer 51 has, besides a POS application program 511, a common interface dependent on an operating system (OS) in use and independent of a database management system (DBMS) and has a ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) driver 512 to invoke the DBMS so as to execute the operation of the DB 521 self-containing the server 52. The server 52 has, besides the DB 521, for example a SQL server 522 as the DBMS and the above ODBC driver 523 and answers the DB operation give out from the client computer 51, for example, for an updating demand and a daily task sales totalization of the merchandise master according to a connection protocol between the ODBC drivers 512,523.
As above, the store terminal device of the general POS system is mainly an all-in-type of a register type, and therefore the customizing according to uses and space is difficult. And, if customized, enormous cost and the maintenance are required.
On the other hand, as the communications circuit the modem communication using the ISDN circuit or the general subscribed telephones circuit is conventionally the mainstream. And, the frame relay circuit is used in an environment thinking much of security and/or having a margin of funds. However, if the communication connection by dialing up is applied and carried out whole day, the communication cost increases. Accordingly, the entire data processing between the host servers is usually carried out by several times of connections per day, which means that only the totalized data of one day or several hours can be transmitted to the host server. And, the headquarters has to bear considerably enormous equipment investment for enabling the host server to one-on-one receive/deliver data from/to a lot of store servers simultaneously.
Further, the headquarters or each store has to bear maintenance cost and enormous communication cost. And, today the Client Server System, wherein another server is provided on the store so as to executing communication with the host server regardless of the number of the store POS terminals, has become the mainstream. In this system the server on the headquarters receives the totalized data from each store (the client). Therefore, because the timing to deliver a new merchandise master and other information is limited, usually data of one-day delay is received and the master for the next day is delivered. Therefore, unfortunately store information such as a sales situation of, for example, new merchandise cannot be obtained in real time.
Recently, another terminal unit is installed at the store in order to solve the above, which further increases the investment for equipment at the store. And since the master as the core is held in the store server, when a failure arises on this, considerable trouble and cost are required for restoration.
Further, in the Client Server System shown in FIG. 15, the ODBC driver 512 shall be provided on the client computer 51 similarly to the server 52 in order to operate the DB 521 in the server 52. And, the DB operation from the client computer 51 can not be done without the connection protocol between both the ODBC drivers.